Rapid Growth In Du Page: Once An Attraction, It`s Now A Curse

March 08, 1992|By Michael Martinez.

Gone are those days when Beth Capek could see the farmland a short walk from her back door, when she could keep her car and home doors unlocked without worry and when she could expect to know just about everyone in her hometown.

In the three decades that have passed since she and her husband, Ray, were born in Du Page County, the pastoral settings of her childhood town of Lisle and its neighboring communities have become filled with office parks and subdivisions stemming from rapid suburban growth.

Now living in a 51-year-old starter home in unincorporated Westmont with one child and another on the way, the Capeks must drive to rural Fox Valley a half-hour away to see a horizon again. Many neighbors now have alarms on their cars and homes, and they lament the loss of small-town intimacy.

``Everything got built up so fast,`` said Beth Capek, a 29-year-old insurance claims adjuster.

``It`s now starting to sink in, and they`re starting to deal with the water (shortage) and traffic,`` she said. ``Everything was so rush-rush-rush. Expansion was so fast that they didn`t plan for it. Now we have all this congestion.``

While complaining of the legacies of Du Page`s rapid growth, Capek accepts it as inescapable. ``Because of the age we live in, we`re used to it,`` she said.

Those sentiments about growth and development reflect several findings in a recent Tribune poll of 617 Du Page residents.

In the poll and subsequent interviews, residents like the Capeks said development has helped bring about good schools, convenient shopping malls and attractive homes. But at the same time, residents expressed reservations about the consequences of growth and complained about high taxes, commuter-choked roads and flooding.

The most obvious sign of suburban growth-traffic congestion-ranked as a problem for almost two-thirds of the respondents. And more than three-fourths said property-tax increases have gotten so out of hand that they listed them as a problem as well.

Highlighting the tradeoffs that come with development, residents expressed some ambivalence about Du Page`s commercial and residential growth, and they said in interviews that some of their expectations about the quality of life in a newly developed community were dampened by adverse consequences such as crowded roads.

For example, 44 percent of respondents listed as a general problem too much commercial and residential development.

On the other hand, 62 percent specifically said the pace of commercial development should be increased or remain the same. And 68 percent said residential development also should remain the same or increase.

Longtime residents and development advocates say they prefer commercial development to march ahead because it contributes to a school system`s tax base without sending any children there. Du Page residents said that as early as the 1950s, they recognized the significance of that contribution, as rapid growth began to alter many of Du Page`s bedroom communities.

``We said, `We`ve got to get business out here. We`ve got to get someone to share the cost for building the schools,` `` said David Gooder, a lawyer who has lived in the same Downers Grove home since 1949. He represented Paul Butler when he developed Oak Brook from the late 1950s until his death in 1981.

During that time, Du Page developed a tradition that encouraged growth, and little organized opposition has emerged over the years.

There is resistance ``in certain local pockets,`` Gooder said, ``but there hasn`t been anything widespread as I sense in, say, Lake County.``

Residents in the poll who advocate a slowdown in commercial growth cited the recession and the numerous vacancies in strip malls. They also cited a controversial 1991 tax impact study by the Du Page County Regional Planning Commission that challenged conventional wisdom by contending that non-residential development might be contributing significantly to property-tax increases rather than reducing taxes.

That study has been roundly condemned by some professors, interest groups for developers and people like Gooder. They contend the study`s statistical methodology is flawed.

But many residents say they believe the study speaks a few truths.

``I do agree,`` said Dolores Rumick, 60, a nurse who lives in Elmhurst.

``There`s all kinds of cockamamie commercial development. These things could be done better. Have you gone into one of these malls? And you see all this stuff and there`s nothing you want to buy. They all seem to be from the same cookie cutter.``

Rumick and her husband, Wallace, moved from St. Louis 22 years ago when he had a job change. They picked Elmhurst for its central location, access to highways, reputable schools and quaint downtown, which included a five-and-dime. Rumick and her husband, a retired chemical salesman, raised three children in their two-story, three-bedroom stucco home.